Kazakh language

Kazakh
Qazaq
қазақша or қазақ тілі قازاقشا‎ or قازاق ٴتىلى‎ qazaqşa or qazaq tılı
Pronunciation	[qɑzɑqˈɕɑ] [qɑˈzɑq tɪˈlɪ]
Native to	Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan
Region	Central Asia (Turkestan)
Ethnicity	Kazakhs
Native speakers	13.2 million (2009)[1]
Language family	Turkic Common Turkic Kipchak Kipchak–Nogai Kazakh
Writing system	Kazakh alphabets (Latin script, Cyrillic script, Arabic script, Kazakh Braille)
Official status
Official language in	Kazakhstan Russia Altai Republic[2] China Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture Barköl Kazakh Autonomous County Mori Kazakh Autonomous County Aksay Kazakh Autonomous County show Organisations: Turkic Council Collective Security Treaty Organization
Regulated by	Ministry of Culture and Sports
Language codes
ISO 639-1	kk
ISO 639-2	kaz
ISO 639-3	kaz
Glottolog	kaza1248
Linguasphere	44-AAB-cc
The Kazakh-speaking world:   regions where Kazakh is the language of the majority   regions where Kazakh is the language of a significant minority
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

Kazakh or Qazaq (Latin: qazaqşa or qazaq tılı, Cyrillic: қазақша or қазақ тілі, Arabic: قازاقشا‎ or قازاق ٴتىلى‎, pronounced [qɑzɑqˈɕɑ], [qɑˈzɑq tɪˈlɪ]), is a Turkic language of the Kipchak branch spoken in Central Asia. It is closely related to Nogai, Kyrgyz and Karakalpak. Kazakh is the official language of Kazakhstan and a significant minority language in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture in Xinjiang, China and in the Bayan-Ölgii Province of Mongolia. Kazakh is also spoken by many ethnic Kazakhs throughout the former Soviet Union (some 472,000 in Russia according to the 2010 Russian Census), Germany, and Turkey.

Like other Turkic languages, Kazakh is an agglutinative language and employs vowel harmony.

In October 2017, Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev decreed that the writing system would change from using Cyrillic to Latin script by 2025. The proposed Latin alphabet has been revised several times and as of January 2021 is close to the inventory of the Turkish alphabet, though lacking the letters C and Ç and having four additional letters: Ä, Ñ, Q and Ū (though other letters such as Y have different values in the two languages). It is scheduled to be phased in from 2023 to 2031.

Geographic distribution[]

Speakers of Kazakh (mainly Kazakhs) are spread over a vast territory from the Tian Shan to the western shore of the Caspian Sea. Kazakh is the official state language of Kazakhstan, with nearly 10 million speakers (based on information from the CIA World Factbook^[3] on population and proportion of Kazakh speakers).^[4]

In China, nearly two million ethnic Kazakhs and Kazakh speakers reside in the Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture of Xinjiang.^[5]

Writing system[]

The oldest known written records of languages closely related to Kazakh were written in the Old Turkic alphabet, though it is not believed that any of these varieties were direct predecessors of Kazakh.^[6] Modern Kazakh, going back approximately one thousand years, was written in the Arabic script until 1929, when Soviet authorities introduced a Latin-based alphabet, and then a Cyrillic alphabet in 1940.^[7]

Nazarbayev first brought up the topic of using the Latin alphabet instead of the Cyrillic alphabet as the official script for Kazakh in Kazakhstan in October 2006.^[8][9] A Kazakh government study released in September 2007 said that a switch to a Latin script over a 10- to 12-year period was feasible, at a cost of $300 million.^[10] The transition was halted temporarily on 13 December 2007, with President Nazarbayev declaring: "For 70 years the Kazakhstanis read and wrote in Cyrillic. More than 100 nationalities live in our state. Thus we need stability and peace. We should be in no hurry in the issue of alphabet transformation."^[11] However, on 30 January 2015, the Minister of Culture and Sports Arystanbek Muhamediuly announced that a transition plan was underway, with specialists working on the orthography to accommodate the phonological aspects of the language.^[12] In presenting this strategic plan in April 2017, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev described the twentieth century as a period in which the "Kazakh language and culture have been devastated".^[7]

Nazarbayev ordered Kazakh authorities to create a Latin Kazakh alphabet by the end of 2017, so written Kazakh could return to a Latin script starting in 2018.^[13][14] As of 2018, Kazakh is written in Cyrillic in Kazakhstan and Mongolia, Kazakh is written in Latin in Kazakhstan, while more than one million Kazakh speakers in China use an Arabic-derived alphabet similar to the one that is used to write Uyghur.^[6]

On 26 October 2017, Nazarbayev issued Presidential Decree 569 for the change to a finalized Latin variant of the Kazakh alphabet and ordered that the government's transition to this alphabet be completed by 2025,^[15][16] a decision taken to emphasise Kazakh culture after the era of Soviet rule^[17] and to facilitate the use of digital devices.^[18] However, the initial decision to use a novel orthography employing apostrophes, which make the use of many popular tools for searching and writing text difficult, generated controversy.^[19]

Therefore, on 19 February 2018, the Presidential Decree 637 was issued in which the use of apostrophes was discontinued and replaced with the use of diacritics and digraphs.^[20][21] However, many citizens state that the officially introduced alphabet needs further improvements. Moreover, Kazakh became the second Turkic language to use the "ch" and "sh" digraphs after the Uzbek government adapted them in their version of the Latin alphabet.

In 2020, the President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev called for another revision of the Latin alphabet with a focus on preserving the original sounds and pronunciation of the Kazakh language.^[22][23] This revision, presented to the public in November 2019 by academics from the Baitursynov Institute of Linguistics, and specialists belonging to the official working group on script transition, uses umlauts, breves and cedillas instead of digraphs and acute accents, and introduces spelling changes in order to reflect more accurately the phonology of Kazakh.^[24] This revision is a slightly modified version of the Turkish alphabet, dropping the letters C Ç and having four additional letters that do not exist in Turkish: Ä, Q, Ñ and Ū.

Comparison using article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Cyrillic	Arabic	2021 Latin	English translation
Барлық адамдар тумысынан азат және қадір-қасиеті мен құқықтары тең болып дүниеге келеді.	بارلىق ادامدار تۋمىسىنان ازات جانە قادىر-قاسيەتى مەن قۇقىقتارى تەڭ بولىپ دۇنيەگە كەلەدى. -‎	Barlyq adamdar tumysynan azat jäne qadır-qasietı men qūqyqtary teñ bolyp düniege keledı.	All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.
Адамдарға ақыл-парасат, ар-ождан берілген,	ادامدارعا اقىل پاراسات، ار-ۇجدان بەرىلگەن ،‎	Adamdarğa aqyl-parasat, ar-ojdan berılgen,	They are endowed with reason and conscience
сондықтан олар бір-бірімен туыстық, бауырмалдық қарым-қатынас жасаулары тиіс.	سوندىقتان ولار ٴبىر-بىرىمەن تۋىستىق، باۋىرمالدىق قارىم-قاتىناس جاساۋلارى ٴتيىس .‎	sondyqtan olar bır-bırımen tuystyq, bauyrmaldyq qarym-qatynas jasaulary tiıs.	and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Phonology[]

Kazakh exhibits tongue-root vowel harmony, with some words of recent foreign origin (usually of Russian or Arabic origin) as exceptions. There is also a system of rounding harmony which resembles that of Kyrgyz, but which does not apply as strongly and is not reflected in the orthography. This system only applies to the open vowels /e/, /ɪ/, /ʏ/ and not /ɑ/, and happens in the next syllables.^[25] Thus, (in Latin script) jūldyz ‘star’, bügın ‘today’, and ülken ‘big’ are actually pronounced as jūldūz, bügün, ülkön.

Consonants[]

The following chart depicts the consonant inventory of standard Kazakh;^[26] many of the sounds, however, are allophones of other sounds or appear only in recent loan-words. The 18 consonant phonemes listed by Vajda are without parentheses—since these are phonemes, their listed place and manner of articulation are very general, and will vary from what is shown. The phonemes /f, v, χ, t͡ɕ, t͡s/ only occur in recent borrowings, mostly from Russian (/t͡s/ rarely appears in normal speech). Kazakh has 17 native consonant phonemes; these are the stops /p, b, t, d, k, g/, fricatives /s, z, ɕ, ʑ/, nasals /m, n, ŋ/, liquids /r, l/, and two glides /w, j/.^[27]

In the table, the elements top of a divide are voiceless, while those to the bottom are voiced.

Kazakh consonant phonemes^[28]

		Labials	Alveolar	(Alveolo-) palatal	Velar	Uvular
Nasal		m ⟨м/m⟩	n ⟨н/n⟩		ŋ ⟨ң/ñ⟩
Stop/ Affricate	voiceless	p ⟨п/p⟩	t ⟨т/t⟩	t͡ɕ ⟨ч/ç⟩	k ⟨к/k⟩	(q) ⟨қ/q⟩
	voiced	b ⟨б/b⟩	d ⟨д/d⟩		ɡ ⟨г/g⟩
Fricative	voiceless	f ⟨ф/f⟩	s ⟨с/s⟩	ɕ ⟨ш/ş⟩		χ ⟨х/h⟩
	voiced	v ⟨в/v⟩	z ⟨з/z⟩	ʑ ⟨ж/j⟩		(ʁ) ⟨ғ/ğ⟩
Approximant			l ⟨л/l⟩	j ⟨й/i⟩	w ⟨у/u⟩
Rhotic			ɾ ⟨р/r⟩

The following can be argued not to be distinct phonemes, due to their distribution in front versus back vowel contexts (however, [q] and [ʁ] are used to be phonemic in its orthography as ⟨қ⟩ and ⟨ғ⟩):^[29]

Front	Back
/k/	[q]
/ɡ/	[ʁ]
/l/	[ɫ]
/ŋ/	[ɴ]

In addition, /q/, /ɡ/, and /b/ are lenited intervocalically (between vowels) to [χ], [ɣ], and [β].^{[citation needed]}

• These consonants, given in IPA above, demonstrate certain changes from their Turkic counterparts, changes that are in general principled. Four such patterns are immediately recognizable: (i) Turkic /t͡ɕ/ corresponds to Kazakh /ɕ/, e.g. /qat͡ɕ/ to /qaɕ/ ‘run away’; (ii) Turkic /ɕ/ in turn corresponds to Kazakh /s/ in final position, e.g. /tyɕ/ to /tys/ ‘fall down’; (iii) Turkic /j/ corresponds to /ʑ/ in initial position, e.g. /jaz/ to /ʑaz/ ‘write’ (a change that first led to /j/ to /d͡ʑ/ before resulting in /d͡ʑ/ to /ʑ/, but stayed as /d͡ʑ/ in some dialects, such as in the south and east, e.g. /d͡ʑaz/, Jankowski 2010); and, (iv) Turkic /ɣ/ corresponds to Kazakh /w/ in final position /aɣ/ to /aw/ ‘net’ (see also Krueger 1980, Johanson 2009).^[27]

Vowels[]

Kazakh has a system of 12 phonemic vowels, 3 of which are diphthongs. The rounding contrast and /æ/ generally only occur as phonemes in the first syllable of a word, but do occur later allophonically; see the section on harmony below for more information. Moreover, the /æ/ sound has been included artificially due to the influence of Arabic, Persian and, later, Tatar languages during the Islamic period.^[30] The mid vowels "e, ө, о" are diphthongised with onsets [j͡ɪ, w͡ʉ, w͡ʊ].^[28]

According to Vajda, the front/back quality of vowels is actually one of neutral versus retracted tongue root.^[28]

Phonetic values are paired with the corresponding character in Kazakh's Cyrillic and current Latin alphabets.

Kazakh vowel phonemes^{[citation needed]}

	Front (Advanced tongue root)	Central (Relaxed tongue root)	Back (Retracted tongue root)
Close	ɪ ⟨і/ı⟩	ʉ ⟨ү/ü⟩	ʊ ⟨ұ/ū⟩
Diphthong	jɪ ⟨е/e⟩	əj ⟨и/i⟩	ʊw ⟨у/u⟩
Mid	e ⟨э/e⟩	ə ⟨ы/y⟩	o ⟨о/o⟩
Open	æ ⟨ә/ä⟩	œ ⟨ө/ö⟩	ɑ ⟨а/a⟩

Kazakh vowels by their pronunciation

	Front		Back
	unrounded	rounded	unrounded	rounded
Close	ɪ ⟨і/i⟩	ʉ ⟨ү/ü⟩	ə ⟨ы/y⟩	ʊ ⟨ұ/ū⟩
Open	e ⟨э/e⟩ / æ ⟨ә/ä⟩	œ̝ ⟨ө/ö⟩	ɑ ⟨а/a⟩	o̞ ⟨о/o⟩

Morphology and syntax[]

Kazakh is generally verb-final, though various permutations on SOV (subject–object–verb) word order can be used, for example, due to topicalization.^[31] Inflectional and derivational morphology, both verbal and nominal, in Kazakh, exists almost exclusively in the form of agglutinative suffixes. Kazakh is a nominative-accusative, head-final, left-branching, dependent-marking language.^[6]

Declension of nouns^[6]

Case	Morpheme	Possible forms	keme "ship"	aua "air"	şelek "bucket"	säbız "carrot"	bas "head"	tūz "salt"
Nom	—	—	keme	aua	şelek	säbız	bas	tūz
Acc	-ny	-nı, -ny, -dı, -dy, -tı, -ty	kemenı	auany	şelektı	säbızdı	basty	tūzdy
Gen	-nyñ	-nıñ, -nyñ, -dıñ, -dyñ, -tıñ, -tyñ	kemenıñ	auanyñ	şelektıñ	säbızdıñ	bastyñ	tūzdyñ
Dat	-ga	-ge, -ğa, -ke, -qa, -ne, -na	kemege	auağa	şelekke	säbızge	basqa	tūzğa
Loc	-da	-de, -da, -te, -ta	kemede	auada	şelekte	säbızde	basta	tūzda
Abl	-dan	-den, -dan, -ten, -tan, -nen, -nan	kemeden	auadan	şelekten	säbızden	bastan	tūzdan
Inst	-men	-men(en), -ben(en), -pen(en)	kememen	auamen	şelekpen	säbızben	baspen	tūzben

Pronouns[]

There are eight personal pronouns in Kazakh:

Personal pronouns^[6]

		Singular	Plural
1st person		Men	Bız
2nd person	informal	Sen	Sender
	formal	Sız	Sızder
3rd person		Ol	Olar

The declension of the pronouns is outlined in the following chart. Singular pronouns exhibit irregularities, while plural pronouns don't. Irregular forms are highlighted in bold.^[6]

Number	Singular				Plural
Person	1st	2nd		3rd	1st	2nd		3rd
		Familiar	Polite			Familiar	Polite
Nominative	men	sen	sız	ol	bız	sender	sızder	olar
Genitive	menıñ	senıñ	sızdıñ	onyñ	bızdıñ	senderdıñ	sızderdıñ	olardyñ
Dative	mağan	sağan	sızge	oğan	bızge	senderge	sızderge	olarğa
Accusative	menı	senı	sızdı	ony	bızdı	senderdı	sızderdı	olardy
Locative	mende	sende	sızde	onda	bızde	senderde	sızderde	olarda
Ablative	menen	senen	sızden	odan	bızden	senderden	sızderden	olardan
Instrumental	menımen	senımen	sızben	onymen	bızben	sendermen	sızdermen	olarmen

In addition to the pronouns, there are several more sets of morphemes dealing with person.^[6]

Morphemes indicating person^[6]

	Pronouns	Copulas	Possessive endings	Past/Conditional
1st sg	men	-mın	-(ı)m	-(ı)m
2nd sg	sen	-sı	-(ı)ñ	-(ı)ñ
3rd sg	ol	-/-dır	-	—
1st pl	bız	-bız	-(ı)mız	-(ı)k/-(y)q
2nd sng formal & pl	sız	-sız	-(ı)ıñız	-(ı)ñız/-(y)ñyz
3rd pl	olar	-/-dır	—	—

Tense, aspect and mood[]

Kazakh may express different combinations of tense, aspect and mood through the use of various verbal morphology or through a system of auxiliary verbs, many of which might better be considered light verbs. The present tense is a prime example of this; progressive tense in Kazakh is formed with one of four possible auxiliaries. These auxiliaries "otyr" (sit), "tūr" (stand), "jür" (go) and "jat" (lie), encode various shades of meaning of how the action is carried out and also interact with the lexical semantics of the root verb: telic and non-telic actions, semelfactives, durative and non-durative, punctual, etc. There are selectional restrictions on auxiliaries: motion verbs, such as бару (go) and келу (come) may not combine with "otyr". Any verb, however, can combine with "jat" (lie) to get a progressive tense meaning.^[6]

Progressive aspect in the present tense^[6]

Kazakh	Aspect	English translation
Men jeimın	non-progressive	"I (will) eat [every day]."
Men jeudemın	progressive	"I am eating [right now]."
Men jep otyrmyn	progressive/durative	"I am [sitting and] eating." / "I have been eating."
Men jep tūrmyn	progressive/punctual	"I am [in the middle of] eating [this very minute]."
Men jep jürmın	habitual	"I eat [lunch, everyday]"

While it is possible to think that different categories of aspect govern the choice of auxiliary, it is not so straightforward in Kazakh. Auxiliaries are internally sensitive to the lexical semantics of predicates, for example, verbs describing motion:^[6]

Selectional restrictions on Kazakh auxiliaries^[6]

Sentance	Auxiliary Used
Suda water-LOC balyq fish jüzedı swim-PRES-3 Suda balyq jüzedı water-LOC fish swim-PRES-3 "Fish swim in water" (general statement)	∅ (present/future tense used)
Suda water-LOC balyq fish jüzıp swim-CVB jatyr AUX.3 Suda balyq jüzıp jatyr water-LOC fish swim-CVB AUX.3 "The/A fish is swimming in the water"	jat－ to lie, general marker for progressive aspect.
Suda water-LOC balyq fish jüzıp swim-CVB jür AUX.3 Suda balyq jüzıp jür water-LOC fish swim-CVB AUX.3 "The fish is swimming [as it always does] in the water"	jür – "go", dynamic/habitual/iterative
Suda water-LOC balyq fish jüzıp swim-CVB tūr AUX.3 Suda balyq jüzıp tūr water-LOC fish swim-CVB AUX.3 "The fish is swimming in the water"	tūr – "stand", progressive marker to show the swimming is punctual
*   Suda water-LOC balyq fish jüzıp swim-CVB otyr AUX.3 * Suda balyq jüzıp otyr {} water-LOC fish swim-CVB AUX.3 *The fish has been swimming Not a possible sentence of Kazakh	otyr – "sit", ungrammatical in this sentence, otyr can only be used for verbs that are stative in nature

In addition to the complexities of the progressive tense, there are many auxiliary-converb pairs that encode a range of aspectual, modal, volitional, evidential and action- modificational meanings. For example, the pattern -yp köru, with the auxiliary verb köru (see), indicates that the subject of the verb attempted or tried to do something (compare the Japanese てみる temiru construction).^[6]

Annotated text with gloss[]

From the first stanza of "Menıŋ Qazaqstanym" ("My Kazakhstan"), the national anthem of Kazakhstan:

Менің Қазақстаным	Men-ıŋ Qazaqstan-ym	My Kazakhstan
Алтын күн аспаны	Altyn kün aspan-y	The golden sun in the sky
[ɑltən kʉn ɑspɑˈnə]	gold sun sky-3.POSS
Алтын дән даласы	Altyn dän dala-sy	The golden corn of the steppe
[altən dæn dɑlɑˈsə]	gold corn steppe-3.POSS
Ерліктің дастаны	Erlık-tıñ dastan-y	The legend of courage
[erlɘkˈtɘŋ dɑstɑˈnə]	courage legend-GEN epic-3.POSS-NOM
Еліме қарашы!	El-ım-e qara-şy	Just look at my country!
[ɘlɘˈmʲe qɑrɑˈʃə]	country-1SG.ACC look-IMP
Ежелден ер деген	Ejel-den er de-gen	Called heroes since time immemorial
[ɘʑʲɘlˈdʲen ɘr dʲɪˈɡʲen]	antiquity-ABL hero say-PTCP.PST
Даңқымыз шықты ғой	Daŋq-ymyz şyq-ty ğoi	Our glory, emerged!
[dɑɴqəˈməz ʃəqˈtə ʁoj]	glory-1PL.POSS.NOM emerge-PST.3 EMPH
Намысын бермеген	Namys-yn ber-me-gen	Without losing their honor
[nɑməˈsən bʲermʲeˈɡʲen]	honor-3.POSS-ACC give-NEG-PTCP.PST
Қазағым мықты ғой	Qazağ-ym myqty ğoi	Mighty are my Kazakh people!
[qɑzɑˈʁəm məqˈtə ʁoj]	Kazakh-1SG.POSS strong EMPH
Менің елім, менің елім	Men-ıñ el-ım, menıŋ el-ım	My country, my country
[mʲɘˈnɘŋ ɘˈlɪm, mʲɘˈnɘŋ ɘˈlɪm]	1SG.GEN my country (2x)-1SG.NOM
Гүлің болып, егілемін	Gül-ıñ bol-yp, eg-ıl-e-mın	As your flower, I am rooted in you
[ɡʉˈlɘŋ boˈləp, ɘɡɘlʲɘˈmɪn]	flower-2SG.NOM be-CNVB, root-PASS-PRES-1SG
Жырың болып төгілемін, елім	Jyr-yñ bol-yp, tög-ıl-e-mın, el-ım	As your song, I will be sung abound
[ʒəˈrəŋ boˈləp tœɡɪlˈʲɘmɪn, ɘˈlɪm]	song-2SG.NOM be-CNVB, sing-PASS-PRES-1SG, country-1SG.POSS.NOM
Туған жерім менің – Қазақстаным	Tu-ğan jer-ım menıŋ – Qazaqstan-ym	My native land – My Kazakhstan
[tuwˈʁan ʒeˈrɪm mʲɘnɘŋ qɑzɑqˈstɑnəm]	birth-PTCP-PST place-1SG.POSS.NOM 1SG.GEN – Kazakhstan-1SG.POSS.NOM

Comparison with Kyrgyz[]

Kazakh and Kyrgyz may be better seen as mutually intelligible dialects or varieties of a single tongue which are regarded as separate languages for sociopolitical reasons. They differ mainly phonetically while the lexicon and grammar are much the same, although both have standardized written forms that may differ in some ways. Until the 20th century, both languages used a common written form of Chaghatai Turkic.^[32]

See also[]

• BGN/PCGN romanization of Kazakh
• Turkic languages
• Kazakh literature
• Languages of Kazakhstan

References[]

Further reading[]

• Kara, Dävid Somfai (2002), Kazak, Lincom Europa, ISBN 9783895864704
• Mark Kirchner: "Kazakh and Karakalpak". In: The Turkic languages. Ed. by Lars Johanson and É. Á. Csató. London [u.a.] : Routledge, 1998. (Routledge language family descriptions). S.318-332.

External links[]

Kazakh edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wikivoyage has a phrasebook for Kazakh.

• Kazakh Cyrillic–Latin (new) converter
• Kazakh Cyrillic–Latin (old)–Arabic converter
• Kazakh language, alphabet and pronunciation
• Aliya S. Kuzhabekova, "Past, Present and Future of Language Policy in Kazakhstan" (M.A. thesis, University of North Dakota, 2003)
• Russian–Kazakh Kazakh–Russian dictionary
• Kazakh language recordings, British Library
• Kazakh – Apertium
• Kazakh<>Turkish Dictionary
• Kazakhstan in the CIA World Factbook
• US Peace Corps Kazakh Language Courses transcribed to HTML